A female lecturer from the Islamic University in Gaza recently claimed in a television interview that, contrary to the claims of Westerners, Islam defends the rights of women.

The interview aired on the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV channel on March 8 to mark International Woman’s Day. It was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

The professor, Tahani Abu Jazar, said – ironically while her face was covered in an Islamic veil – that the “woman who is allegedly deprived of her rights in Islam in fact receives her rights in full.”

The West raises doubts about women’s right in Islam, she claimed, because these “doubts are indications of their own weakness, because they cannot live like in the Islamic world, which glows like a shining star in the skies. They cannot honor the woman as she is honored by Islam. That is why there are doubts.”

Since violently taking over Gaza in 2007, Hamas has enforced a stringent interpretation of Islamic law in Gaza.

The terror group has banned women and teenagers from smoking hookahs in public, ordered that women’s clothing stores are not allowed to have dressing rooms, men cannot have hairdressing salons for women and that mannequins shaped like women must be dressed in modest clothing.

Hamas is not the only offender in this regard. Women’s rights are nearly non-existent in Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia where women are physically punished if not wearing compulsory clothing, are almost entirely excluded from political life, and cannot drive, or Iran, where crimes such as “adultery” are punishable by death by stoning of the woman.